Mobile broadcast solutions have been standardized by different organizations, such as the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS). 3GPP multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) enables resource-efficient delivery of multimedia content to the mobile users. A multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) client can receive content via download delivery, streaming delivery, a combination of streaming delivery and download delivery, and/or other delivery methods.
Multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) is a 3GPP Release 6 (Rel-6) feature, which may be deployed by network operators where it is cost efficient to have the broadcast/multicast distribution of content. When multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) subscribers move to other areas, where there is no multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) coverage, the network operator may distribute the multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) content in a unicast mode.
In the multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS), there are two different modes of operation: Multicast mode, which comprises the following main phases of subscription: subscription, service announcement, joining, session start, MBMS notification, data transfer, session stop and leaving. Subscription establishes a relationship between the user and the service provider to allow the user to receive the related multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS). The service announcement subsequently informs users about the available multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) user services. On joining, a subscriber indicates to the network that he or she desires to receive multicast mode data of a particular multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) bearer service. Next, the session start triggers for bearer resource establishment for multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) data transfer and after that the MBMS notification informs the user of available multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) multicast data transfer, which then occurs in the data transfer phase. Finally, when no more data has been sent for a set period, the session stops and the bearer resources are released. The subscriber may leave or deactivate the multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) multicast service when no more multicast mode service is desired. The user, the service provider or both may be charged for the multicast mode service. In the broadcast mode, in comparison to the multicast mode, the operation is otherwise similar but the joining and leaving are not needed. Correspondingly, the broadcast service is likely to be charged from the service provider only.
Multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) introduces the concept of a point-to-multipoint service into a 3GPP system. A requirement of a multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) user service is to be able to securely transmit data to a given set of users. In order to achieve this, there needs to be a method of authentication, key distribution and data protection for a multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) user service. This means that multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) security is specified to protect multimedia broadcast/multicast service (MBMS) user services, and it is independent on whether multicast or broadcast mode is used.
With the explosive growth of media content consumption, the number of media servers to provide streaming services is required to be increased almost linearly with the number of users. In addition, centralized streaming media servers require considerable demands towards the bandwidth of the backbone IP network. So it is required to deploy more and more edge servers close to user equipments (UE) to guarantee service quality with the increasing number of users.
Peer-to-peer (P2P) technology can be used between edge servers and user equipments (UE) to relieve the above problem. Not only the edge servers handle the requests from its locally served user equipments (UE), but also they can handle the requests transferred from the neighboring edge servers. Similarly, if the user equipment's (UE) capabilities permit, the user equipment (UE) can offer spare uplink bandwidth and storage space while obtaining data, and uploads data to other requested destinations. Content is transmitted in a segmented manner, and most of the traffic can be spread across the edge of the network, which helps reduce the storage and bandwidth demands of centralized servers. Therefore, the system capability is improved along with the increasing number of edge servers and user equipments (UE).